An' the derned fool women 'lowed her to do it, too. Seems as
though her great-grandfather was a 'squire over in England, an' she had
a right to be swell. Well, she ruled the roost fer two summers an'
nobody could get near her without a special dispensation from the
Almighty. She wouldn't look at anybody with her eyes; her chin was so
high in the air that she had to look through her nose.
"Her husband was as old as Methoosalum--that is, he was as old as
Methoosalum was when he was a boy, so to speak--an' she had him skeered
of his life. But I fixed her. At the end of the second summer she was
ready to git up an' git, duke er no duke. Lemme me give you a tip, Wick.
If you want to fetch a queen down to your level, jest let her know
you're laughin' at her. Well, sir, the judge's wife used to turn up her
nose at me until I got to feelin' too small to be seen. My pride was
wallerin' in the dust. Finally, I thought of a scheme to fix her. Every
time I saw her, I'd grin at her--not sayin' a word, mind you, but jest
lookin' at her as if she struck me as bein' funny. Well, sir, I kept it
up good an' strong. First thing I knowed, she was beginnin' to look as
though a bee had stung her an' she couldn't find the place. I'd ketch
her stealin' sly glances at me an' she allus found me with a grin on my
face--a good, healthy grin, too.
"There wasn't anything to laugh at, mind you, but she didn't know that.
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